So here's a thought: I'm going to try to write a blog entry in which I don't go on about my busy-ness and commitments. Because really, one can only do that for so long before it gets really irritating, and I think I passed that point a few months ago.

Instead, I'm stealing a blog idea from my blogging friend Tia over at Living Deliberately, who today wrote about simple pleasures. I thought about her attention to simple pleasures while going about my business today, and it improved my mood dramatically.

Simple pleasures I noted today:

• Paved, not carpeted, sidewalks. My job at the music department involves dragging around a huge lime green suitcase full of recording equipment, and it really is much easier to pull it on pavement than carpeting. Well done whoever came up with that idea.
• Raisins- they are really very delightful little morsels. I'm a fan. Also good for keeping up blood sugar in the middle of the day.
  
• Deserted student center lounges on Saturday nights. It makes me happy to feel like I have my own space.
• Thick gloves in chilly wind. I'm not a fan of numbness.
• The "change language" option on Blogger. Tonight I switched my language to Spanish, put my latest composition for Spanish class in an entry, and ran a spell check. Very helpful in finding where I missed accent marks.
  
• A website that provides links to places where tv shows and movies have been uploaded to the internet. I finally got around to watching Breakfast at Tiffany's- what a crazy, heartwarming, adorable movie.

Feel free to join me- we could all use more causes for cheerfulness :-)

Geez.

I guess I have been pretty awful about taking time to write here. I'm not dead (Linda, O Leaver of Desperate-Sounding Comments, you should know that, you saw me last week). I am, however, exceedingly busy. This semester doesn't feel worse than last semester work-wise, but it is. Hello, real college classes with real college finals (i.e. cumulative and no study guides). I'm also working, not a lot, but some, and those hours have to come from somewhere.

Next semester isn't looking much easier, but I think that's good. I was elected Membership Chair for Right to Life, so I'll have all sorts of officer duties and things. I made it on the Experiential Learning Council, so I'll be helping with the service learning seminars through the Center for Social Concerns (I went on one over Christmas, the Urban Plunge, and I'll be going on one this summer called the Summer Service Learning Program). I have declared a PoliSci major and a Catholic Social Tradition minor, with a Peace Studies supplementary major to follow as soon as I get the form signed. I'm official, as it were. All of that is in preparation for course registration, which is turning out to be quite the headache as no one can agree if I'm currently a sophomore or a freshman. Silly bureaucracy. I applied for a grad-research-in-undergrad sort of program through the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and I'm hoping that I get into that. I'd work with one of the fellows next year on his research and then do research of my own, eventually writing a thesis. I'm also going to keep my job at the Music Department through next semester, with the hope that, if I got into this research program, eventually that would become my work-study. I also want to get back involved in Amnesty International and maybe take swing dancing lessons. I'm still deciding whether I want to work with Take Ten, a conflict resolution education program in area schools, next semester, but I've enjoyed it this semester. I also need to decide if I want to work with leading some of the freshman programs through campus ministry that I've been involved in this year, such as freshman retreats and freshman peer leaders. Lots to do, not enough hours.

That's where I am. Crazy, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities popping up all around me all the time. Good times.